WHEN GOD TOLD JONAH TO GO to the wicked citizens of Nineveh and preach the words that God would give him so they would reform (see Jonah 1:1, 2), he resisted—much as many might do today if told to go preach reform to drug warlords.
In tune with the morality of his times, Jonah felt that anyone who did not worship God as the Hebrews did should be destroyed. But God's message implied they were to be saved from the consequences of their sins and therefore that His care included so-called outsiders—perhaps even those perceived as enemies. This caused Jonah so much mental turmoil that he fled (or so he thought) "from the presence of the Lord" (Jonah 1:3), and boarded a ship to Tarshish. When a storm arose, he feared it was God's wrath and told the frightened crew to throw him overboard. Ending up in the belly of "a great fish," he prayed and committed himself to obeying God. The fish coughed him up on shore.
To his surprise the people of Nineveh were receptive to the message that God furnished to them through Jonah, and they reformed. This unexpected result increased Jonah's mental turmoil, and God rebuked him, asking: "And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?" (Jonah 4:11).
